Hi. I am attempting to handload a wadcutter load for the .32ACP. I do gelatin testing and have posted some of my results into the appropriate forums here for about a year. Essentially, I am looking to evaluate the terminal performance of this load, due to the 'cleaner cutting' properties of the wadcutter shape. I know this is kindof an odd-ball question, but any help is appreciated.

In general, what is the approach to loading bullets heavier than tabulated for a particular cartridge? Just looking at the length of the wadcutter bullets, I would assume that they would have to be pushed deeper into the case, so that a nearly compressed load would result. What are the effects of seating the bullet deeper into the case? Thank you very much.

Tom, I'm disinclined to think it can be done. You did not say what you are shooting them in, but the first step is to establish with dummy rounds whether bullets can be seated deeply enough for the throat to accept them without the taper of case causing too much of a bulge for the cartridge to chamber. If you get past that hurdle, the next step is going to be determining the remaining case capacity in cc. It ain't gonna be much.

I load flush seated WC in the much longer .32 S&W Long, and that gets tricky enough for me. You may have seen some of my posts whining about the difficulty of charges under 2 grains. You're about to run into the same thing, but worse.

And I doubt that you will get much in the way of results. The reduced velocity will probably eat up any advantage of the larger frontal area.

PS-- That heavier bullet is also gonna give you increased slide velocity to worry about in any of the light blowback pocket pistols.

The firearm is a Kel-Tec P32. I have actually loaded a 90 gr wadcutter utilizing ~ 2 gr. of Accurate #2 (the actual amount escapes me, but it was 0.1 gr. less than the starting load for the tabulated 85. Hornady JHP). The result was a lower than expected recoil. The primer appeared to be fine, it was not flat, etc... but I noticed a buldge in the case about halfway down...

That bulge probably means that load was overpressure and you ran into the slide velocity problem. The slide and case had moved far enough to the rear so that the case had room to bulge before pressure dropped. Cases can blow out because of this, but they have an amazing amount of stretch before they blow. More subtlely, the slide was travelling back far too fast. Repeated often enough, you get battering or crystalization.

Took me a while to figger that out the first time I ran into it.

Since you are investigating terminal effects, I would suggest you do your test shooting with something else. Your test media is going to show the same results when a .32 WC runs into it at 600 fps no matter what it came out of. If you have a 7.62x39 rifle around, that would be about ideal.

You might also spend some time looking at loading manuals which have loads listed for both WC and conventional bullets to get a feel for how much reduction you need. My Lee #2 has such info for .38 Special and .32 Long. My rough guess is that switching to a deep seated WC calls for at least a 1/3 reduction in charge.

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